Never Was Another
by Mthaytr
Summary: Roxas had never had much hope for a quiet, relatively peaceful existence as a Nobody. At least he was never disappointed. Akuroku, Zemyx.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

At three o'clock on October the Fourteenth, Roxas found himself born - completely against his will, he might add - into a world that had too damned much dark in it, a world that didn't want him any more than he wanted it. Upon reflection, he realized that he'd probably come into existence scowling, which went a long way towards explaining his disposition ever since.

He knew, somehow - instinctively - that this place had some kind of connection to the very core of his being, that he and the darkness were inseparable, somehow. But that didn't mean he _liked _it, and Roxas figured out pretty quickly that he could be a master of willful self-deception.

After all, there was something about darkness that made one unable to see; and Roxas thought that, even with no memory of experience to base it on, he might prefer sight, thank you very much.

He was never precisely sure how he managed to force himself out into the world of the living, except that it was distinctly uncomfortable in ways he wasn't quite positive that he wanted to discuss. As for the question of why he'd picked Twilight Town - well, that one was easy enough.

Everywhere else seemed to just radiate this self-righteous group-therapy-session fucking _goodness_ in amounts copious enough that he was _sure_ it burned an imprint on his soul. Not that he had any problem with goodness as a rule, of course, but the particular brand of friendship-touting craziness other worlds just _exuded_ was almost more than he could take.

So Twilight Town, then, was a nice compromise.

When he finally had to leave the place, dragged away by some man in so much black leather he looked like he came from some kinky sex club, he felt a twinge of what might have been regret… or might have been a nervous instinct. But luckily for him, there had never been anyone there to tell him not to walk away with strangers in bondage gear.

That was the way it went with all new members, he found out later - you cornered them in a forest, gave a name away to them like less intellectual perverts might have handed out candy, then promised them more of what they wanted if they followed you back to where you lived and agreed to put on the sex club outfit.

There was, of course, nothing at all out of the ordinary about this.

XXX

"He doesn't look like much, does he?" came a drawled snark from across the room, and Roxas scowled even deeper than he had been before.

Out of some deeply rooted sadistic urge, he suspected, Xemnas - that was the name of his new leader, apparently - had decided to put Roxas on display in the Organization's council room , to undergo some kind of interrogation at the hands of the rest of the members. They were all just as bad as their master.

To make it all worse, he had been coerced into the black leather trench coat, same as the rest of them, and that, plus the fact that he was the only one in the room without his hood up, made it very, very awkward to stand in front of a whole group of people who were likely ogling his ass. The outfit made him feel like rape-bait, to be entirely honest, and being looked down upon by a bunch of assholes in pure-white, levitating chairs didn't make things much better.

"The Superior believes he may be worthy," intoned another from the opposite end, voice rumbling and full of silky amusement.

"He looks like a pansy-ass," came another drawled voice - female this time, and more than a little bit creepy. "I could take him, no problem." The blonde could tell who was speaking, this time, because her chair raised itself by at least five feet.

"You think you could take anyone," another responded, amused. "You couldn't take Demyx, if he got it in his little head to kick your ass." This one's chair raised itself, too - it must have been some kind of pathetic power-play, like a giant pissing-game. See how high you can get before you piss off the boss.

"I don't know if _this_ one could,though," interrupted another, clearly referring to the blonde. His voice was deep and promised all kinds of pain, and not in a good sort of way.

Roxas was beginning to lose his patience. There was only so long he could stand there as other people tore into him.

"Will you all shut the hell up?" he finally burst out, anger suddenly negating the awkwardness of having everyone staring directly at him, again, instead of at each other. "I don't even know why it _matters_ who can beat the shit out of who, but if you're really so eager to have a try at me, then get off your fucking high horse and come try it!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, there was a flash - and when it was gone, it left behind two weapons - he knew they were weapons, somehow, in an instinct born of he didn't even know what, though the likelihood of a key being a viable weapon was, logically, negligible. But, it felt right, for that moment, and he fell back into a guarding stance almost instantly.

When he looked back on the moment later, he never could understand why that didn't strike him as the least bit strange. Surely that would have caught any sane person off their guard.

No one else seemed too surprised by it either - instead of gasps of incredulity, there was a long silence after that, and he could just _feel_ Xemnas smiling evilly at him, like that was exactly what he had expected. That fucking pissed him off.

"…So you're _that_ one, are you?" asked one - he couldn't tell who - before a long silence. "What's your name, kid?"

"I'm Roxas," he growled, grip tightening on his keyblades. "I don't know what you mean by 'that one,' but I'm not 'kid' or 'that one' or any other names you decide to come up with," he spat venomously, eyes flashing.

"Whoa, whoa. Take it easy," the same guy responded, putting his hands up in evident surrender. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"Are there… any further objections?" another interrupted, before Roxas could respond. That voice definitely belonged to the Superior.

"Dammit, isn't anybody going to _fight_ me?" he fumed, ignoring his new leader. It wasn't so much that he really wanted to fight as that he wasn't about to let them fucking talk to him like that. God, couldn't they let him blow off a little steam?

"Roxas, number XIII," Xemnas continued, not stopping for said blonde's interjection, "the newest member of the Organization."

There was only silence in response to that - and honestly, he was kind of glad they weren't applauding.

Because then, he might feel kind of bad when he beat the ever-loving shit out of every one of them.

XXX

It took only a moment of Roxas's time to curse the gods that were laughing at him - and though the thought had been immensely appealing, somehow it didn't make him feel much better. Proof that the creators of the universe were deaf mutes was _not_ what he needed just then.

What he needed was a ball gag. What he wanted was to beat the annoying little fucker until he could taste his own brain.

"Sorry about that, by the way," the other blonde - Demyx - continued cheerily, evidently not one to let up his verbal assault for even an instant. "The other guys can kind of be assholes. But they'll come around to you eventually - at least, they did for me. It's not so bad."

Roxas's eyebrow twitched - couldn't the other kid see that the last thing he wanted right then was reassurance? He wanted to go stew in his own fury, dammit. Every nice word that came out of the other's mouth was just making him madder, because he wasn't saying _anything_ that Roxas could just fucking _blow up_ at.

"Go bother someone else," he finally muttered with much less vitriol than he was feeling, hoping that the other would get the damn hint.

Demyx shrugged, evidently nonplussed.

"If you want," he replied with a small smile - and it occurred to Roxas that the ease with which he took the other's dismissal said volumes about how many times he'd heard it before. For an instant, he almost felt sorry for the other boy - but not quite, and the feeling passed quickly enough that he wasn't worried.

"Anyway, if you want some company ever, you'll probably find me down in the basement. I might like some company," he stated, voice carefully neutral.

"Yeah," he grunted with an air that was decidedly not amicable before stalking forward in hopes of locating his room. Within an instant, however, Demyx was gone - disappeared into one of those giant black vortexes that Xemnas had summoned during their first meeting.

"Fucking hell," he muttered to himself as he watched the tendrils of black disappear, "can everyone do that but me?"

He jumped more than he would care to admit when another voice suddenly interrupted him - he hadn't even realized that someone was nearby, much less listening. These people were fucking creepy.

"You could do it too, kid. You've just never tried."

Despite the fact that the guy's hood was up, Roxas still recognized him from the council room - his flamboyant gesticulations gave him away better than a face ever would. He had the guy pegged as a flamer from the first, and was never proved wrong.

"I told you, I'm Roxas," he grumbled, scowling like a champion but without the pure fighting anger from earlier. There was only so long a person could keep that up for.

"Roxas, Roxas," he said, putting a hand to his hooded forehead dramatically. "How could I possibly forget." He paused, and Roxas glared. "Anyway, welcome to the team, Roxas. I'm Axel," he said, pulling down his hood with a flourish and a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. He extended a hand - presumably to shake - but pulled it back with a laugh and a shrug when Roxas didn't move to take it.

The first thing that the blonde noted about this new guy - this Axel - was that he had just proved Roxas wrong on several counts. Firstly, that the redhead's wild gestures were not, in fact, the most noticeable thing about him - that would probably go for the hair. It took over the room, like it owned the fucking place, and he _just couldn't stop staring_. As for the second point - well, a person could keep up irrational anger for far longer than he had previously thought.

Something about this guys just pissed him the fuck off. He didn't know for sure what it was - maybe it was the facial tattoos, maybe the overconfident stance - but he was doing something that gave off the asshole vibe. This guy thought he was hot shit.

"_Why_," Roxas began, not allowing himself to be unnerved by the piercing green stare as his gaze locked on Axel's, "are you following me? I thought I'd made it obvious that I don't fucking want to talk to you."

The redhead grinned even wider, crossing his arms and letting out a short laugh.

"Aww, don't be like that. I just thought you might like some company on your first day, is all."

"Like hell that's all," the other spat back. "I'm not some kind of toy for you or anyone else to play with. Not gonna let you prod me around until I do something that amuses you. So fuck off unless your idea of amusement is me kicking your ass, in which case I'm more than willing." He could feel his shoulders tense up with those words, preparing - just in case.

Axel gave a low whistle, and - disappointingly enough - he didn't move, though his smirk grew to epic proportions.

"That sounds like fun… but only if _your _ass is nicer than it looks from here," he drawled, half-suggestively and half-derisively, giving the boy a slow once-over that made his face heat up annoyingly. "Looks kinda scrawny to me."

Roxas's eyebrow twitched. The black outfit hadn't been _his _idea.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he growled indignantly, hoping that he didn't. "And anyway, your ass is scrawnier than mine," he added petulantly, though it was true - the redhead looked skinny enough to have just escaped a medieval torture chamber. The thought struck him that the guy might be the sort of person who'd _enjoy_ that - on either end of the whip - and the smaller flushed scarlet, a fact which didn't escape the other man.

Another laugh.

"Of course you don't, kid. You will soon." Roxas let the diminutive go for the moment - he had more important things to worry about. His level of indignant shock was rising by the instant, and he found then that his sheer level of astonishment and embarrassment didn't leave much room for the burning anger.

"So, if I offer to take you up on that…" he continued., green eyes flashing with amusement.

"Get the hell away from me! You're a fucking pervert," he informed the other with only a slight overtone of something that was definitely _not_ hysteria.

Axel raised a delicate eyebrow, but his smirk never left.

"Come on, kid. You're with the Organization now, you're going to have to get used to it." He paused, watching Roxas's face go white with evident amusement. "This is downright _subtle_ when you compare it to some of the shit the other members get up to."

The boy's first thought, then, went something like this; _Oh god, what have I done?_ Which was, then, followed closely by _I have to get the hell out of here._

"…_Subtle?_" he posed in disbelief, before taking a deep breath and continuing. _"_Alright then, great. Where's the exit?" he asked, trying to and mostly succeeding at hiding his wide-eyed nervousness.

Axel raised both his eyebrows now, and Roxas very nearly threw a punch at his smirking face.

"What, you gonna leave us now?"

Roxas looked at the floor as he stomped forward, not really wanting to continue with the conversation any more, but answering because - he wasn't even quite sure why, but he did.

"Yeah. I didn't even want to join in the first place," he shot out breathlessly, flailing verbally - somewhere, he was probably hoping to get lucky and hit some kind of nerve in the other man. Even ruffling his feathers just the tiniest fucking bit would have been acceptable. "I just joined because…" He came back into his senses as soon as he heard himself say that, realizing what he had been about to say.

There was a long silence after that, horrible and awkward, and when Roxas allowed himself a glance over his shoulder he saw that, for the first time, Axel's expression was completely serious.

"You joined because you didn't have anywhere else to go," he said, so matter-of-factly that it stopped the boy for a moment. He turned around, slowly, and he realized that Axel knew, exactly, what he was thinking - every single one of them had probably been in the same situation. In a new world, a new existence, there was nothing else.

"Yeah." That one word said it all.

So Roxas stayed.

XXX

Demyx, having a curious talent for these sorts of things, was less than surprised when Axel appeared in his room in the basement less than fifteen minutes after he himself had decided to leave Roxas alone. The redhead looked, interestingly enough, like he'd either just met the love of his life - or like he'd just gotten to kill someone.

It really said something about Axel that both of these things resulted in a similar level of euphoria.

"So," he began, shutting the book he had been reading - _Fifteen Ways to Bake Delicious Pastries and Other Fluffy Delights for the Cooking Impaired -_ before turning his gaze towards Axel. His teammate - not friend, really; not most of the time - looked vaguely dazed, but with a grin on his face that couldn't be denied. "What brings you down here?"

"Shit," he began before Demyx could finish, "that kid's a regular fucking firecracker, isn't he?"

Demyx raised an eyebrow - so, the former.

"You mean Roxas? You two met, then." The keyblade master's nobody was already causing quite the stir: among the members of the Organization, their excitement was attributed to the fact that he would be extremely powerful. Demyx knew better. He always knew better. Honestly, for all of the talk about being emotionless, they all seemed to have distinctly Freudian psychologies.

Zexion hadn't appreciated that statement when Demyx had mentioned it to him a few days before, and had spent all of his time since searching the "Five Lectures on Psychology" for proof otherwise. He hadn't come up with anything yet, to the blonde's eternal amusement and the Cloaked Schemer's horror.

"Fuck yes," Axel responded with a disbelieving laugh, interrupting the other's train of thought. "He was all up in arms, about ready to take me on - all five feet of him against me, and he didn't give a damn."

It occurred to Demyx that the redhead didn't seem nearly so pleased when Larxene did exactly the same thing - but that might not have been the best thing to say under the circumstances. Instead, he laughed, giving Axel a knowing look.

"So, did you just come down here to tell me how amazing he is -" _therefore, of course, destroying whatever fear and respect I may have had for you_ "- or did you want anything in particular?" There was an instant's pause. "Advice, maybe?" At that, the look in Axel's eyes changed - as if he had just, suddenly, realized what he had been doing, how _open_ he had been.

"Oh, fuck you," Axel shot back in a way that was amused, but at the same time, instantly closed the topic of discussion.

The blonde winced internally at that - he had this horrible talent for shoving his foot in his mouth, really - but didn't let it show.

"Oh, come on. Can't you take a joke?" he responded playfully, hoping that he hadn't done too much damage with that.

"'Course I can. But you," the other noted with a faintly ominous air, "are currently in the room I want to use. So get out."

Demyx sighed and stood up from his couch before creating a portal to leave. He knew that arguing with Axel at this point would be fruitless - and one of the downsides of having a peaceful nature was that you got pushed around about all the things that didn't matter.

It was kind of annoying, really.

XXX

It was a rather unnerving thing, it occurred to Roxas, to be woken up by the sound of one's door exploding. The shrapnel didn't bother him too much, really, but the sight of a giant fucking sword _thing_ crushing its way across the floor - probably with the intention of maiming him irreversibly - did nothing to improve his mood.

"What the fuck?" were the first words out of his mouth that morning, as they were many other mornings. He would never be disturbed by this fact because he had never woken up any other way.

However, that particular morning left him questioning his sanity.

He dispatched the - the _thing_, whatever it was, with less trouble than he probably should have, with one keyblade in its gut and one shoved directly upwards through its jaw. And, better yet, when the thing died, it just _disappeared_: and Roxas had no experience one way or another, but some instinct told him that that was really fucking weird.

Within seconds, a portal burst into existence, followed shortly thereafter by a distinctly bored-looking Organization member - Xigbar, he remembered, because the man was quite distinctive even without the eye patch.

"What's the deal, kid?" he drawled, giving the crushed room a lazy once-over with a half smirk.

"A giant fucking _sword_ just tried to kill me in my sleep," he responded, much more calmly than he felt - just living in this place seemed to be stretching his suspension of disbelief to incomprehensible proportions. And he'd only been there for a day.

"Oh, that again? I'll have a word with Saïx," he responded with no more interest than before.

Roxas took a moment to digest that.

"…You'll have a word with him. Is this…" He didn't really know if he wanted to ask, but he did anyway. "Is this a _regular_ thing?"

"Oh yeah," Xigbar responded with a low chuckle, creating another portal. "He needs t' remember to keep better control of his fuckin' Nobodies, 's all. His excuse'll probably be that he forgot to add you to his 'Ok-list,' or some shit - but honestly, he just likes making the younger members squirm." There was a long pause as the man took a step through, during which the younger could formulate no response.

"Have fun cleaning up, kid," were his last words before the doorway closed behind him.

That wouldn't be the first time Roxas seriously contemplated genocide.

XXX

It was on his way to what served as their dining room later that day, when Roxas first started to wonder about what the fuck this whole Nobody thing was about. He had a vague idea, to be sure, but it was more on the details side of things that he was left wanting. Did Nobodies even need to eat? Sleep? Those things that he couldn't seem to recall ever _doing_ but seemed, nonetheless, distinctly important.

Entering the dining hall didn't give him any answers, but he was greeted by a scene interesting enough to take his mind from it entirely. Apparently, since there was only one time in the World that Never Was - and that was precisely whatever time it _wasn't _- it was never too early to get drunk, and Axel plus a few other members seemed to be taking full advantage of that fact.

The interesting part, however, was that they seemed to be watching intently as Axel lit his shots on fire and downed them, one after another, grin never leaving his face.

That, of course, brought up the question of whether or not Nobodies could get drunk.

Nice party trick, though.

"…Isn't it a little bit early to be getting drunk?" Roxas asked, scowling as always as he interrupted their little game - he hadn't quite recovered from his awakening that morning yet.

"It's never too early to get drunk," responded Axel with far too much cheer, not missing a beat as he turned around to greet their newest member.

"And there's no early to get drunk _in,_" noted another - the blonde, bearded one with a distinctly British accent - with the philosophical air only attainable through copious amounts of rum. "There's only one time in the World that Never Was-"

"-and that's precisely whatever time it isn't," Xigbar finished for him, cryptic and amused despite his apparent sobriety. In fact, all of the ones drinking gave of the impression that they could snap straight back into their normal selves in any given moment.

Roxas gave the three of them an unimpressed look - he was getting better and better at those by the minute, it seemed. Every single person in this place was abso-fucking-lutely certifiable.

That answered the question about whether or not Nobodies could get drunk, though - no, they couldn't. But they seemed to like to pretend.

"You should come join us," Axel informed the younger blonde with amusement as another shot spontaneously began to burn, making deliberate eye contact with the other as the flames slid down his throat.

Something about that made Roxas thoroughly uncomfortable.

"Thanks, but no. Not interested." He didn't trust any of these guys as far as he could throw them, and with his alcohol tolerance what it was - nonexistent - he didn't see any reason to make himself any more vulnerable in front of them. Guys like that would eat him alive - and the worst part of that was that he didn't know if he was being literal or not.

"Pansy," muttered Xigbar as he took a drink, getting started on whittling away his own capacity for intelligent thought.

"Alright, guys, that's enough. Leave the kid alone," came a voice from behind them, and Roxas looked up to see Demyx's smiling countenance, both hands full with plates of food. The older blonde practically shoved a plate into the other's hands, sitting down at the nearest table as he motioned for Roxas to do the same.

"I can take care of myself, thanks," he mumbled ungratefully as he took the other's offer of sustenance and sat down where invited. It appeared to be a plateful of long, white wormlike things covered in what looked like blood and possibly some kind of meat. Demyx appeared to be digging in with gusto - Roxas thought he might be sick.

"Don't be a spoilsport," Axel drawled good-naturedly as he stood up from the table at which he sat, leaving the others with him to their own amusements, and moved over to theirs.

"So how's your first proper day in the castle been?" he asked as soon as he sat down, with more amusement than was perhaps strictly necessary, but not altogether unkindly, either.

Roxas didn't answer at first, giving a nauseous look to his plate, then back up towards Axel, then down again, trying to decide which was the less repulsive sight. He concluded after a moment's deliberation that the redhead did indeed meet those criteria - but only marginally. So, staring at the table was by far the best option.

The blonde's expression didn't change from one of glum annoyance as he - grudgingly - responded.

"I was attacked this morning before breakfast," he informed the furniture tonelessly, rather than his two companions. He was still, after all, doing his best to pretend that there was nothing strange about it.

It wasn't working so far.

Demyx looked up from his meal at Roxas's statement, and the younger blonde deliberately ignored the expression of sympathy on his face - and Axel's choked laughing sound. Before the redhead could say anything, however, his friend interrupted with what was probably intended to be a kindly tone.

"Aww, don't take it so hard, Roxas," the older blonde told him with a pat to the back that was _entirely _unnecessary. "That's just Saïx playing around 'cause you're new. He's kind of…" He drifted off awkwardly after that, as if expecting Roxas to understand what he was getting at. Needless to say, he didn't.

"What Demyx means to say," number eight cut in smoothly, "is that Saïx is a crazy bastard. Certifiably fucking psychotic."

Roxas gave him a look just then that couldn't decide what, precisely, it was meant to accomplish - a sense of irony didn't translate particularly well into expressions.

"You're _all_ certifiably psychotic," he mumbled under his breath without any real vitriol.

"What was that?" Axel asked with a leonine grin, all teeth and predatory amusement.

"I mean seriously," the blonde continued, knowing full well that the other had heard him, "I come in this morning and you're drinking _flaming alcohol_ that you can't get drunk from in a dining hall that you don't need, talking about things that make absolutely not _sense_." There was a pause. "And it was on _fire_," he added again, as if that point hadn't already been made.

"Fire's my element, it can't hurt me," the other responded, evidently under the impression that somehow made it better.

"…And we do to need the dining hall," Demyx added helpfully, apparently unaffected by the accusation of insanity. "Maybe we don't _need _to eat, but we _can_ - and honestly, there's not much else around this place. We have to do something to enjoy ourselves."

Roxas didn't bring up the fact that, in theory - if he wasn't being lied to - they couldn't technically enjoy anything at all.

"…You're not helping your case, you know." Not hurting it either, maybe, but his verdict still stood.

Axel chuckled at that.

"I know, I know. Wasn't arguing your point." Another pause. "But what he says is true enough, we have shit to do around here most of the time. You'll learn to appreciate food, too." At that, he gave Roxas's plateful a languid poke with his own utensil. "But I guess that's not yet," he mentioned entirely too cheerily, "so you gonna eat that or not?"

The smaller blonde shoved the plate towards the other without a second thought.

"Eat your heart out." He couldn't quite believe that anyone would eat that shit. "Where do you get that crap anyway."

"You mean the pasta?" Demyx asked, confused. "We cook it ourselves if we want to eat, why?"

"…What, you have a kitchen?" Roxas asked in surprise - that just seemed strange. The idea of an organization hell-bent on destroying not just _one_ world but _multiple_, cooking pasta on Thursday evenings.

"More or less," the other responded, completely oblivious to the oddity of the whole thing. "We have a stove an and oven."

There was a long pause as Roxas digested this.

"…So did the World that Never Was pop into existence with _ovens?_" His surprise at the prospect was turning, slowly and completely against his will, into something resembling hysterical amusement - and not necessarily the _good_ kind.

Both of his companions appeared to freeze after that - Axel with his fork halfway to his mouth - as they contemplated the situation.

"You know," Demyx began thoughtfully, "I don't know."

"Or did someone go out and buy them?" Roxas was only barely suppressing his laughter under his expression of discontent now. "What about the dishes? Did Xemnas take a little bit of time out of his scheming and stargazing to do a little bit of interior decorating?"

Surprisingly enough, it was Axel who first started to laugh - not just a chuckle, but an honest-to-god _laugh_ of the kind that - judging from the incredulous stares that the rest of the room was giving him just then - were far too rare around that place.

Watching the astonished faces, Roxas couldn't help but crack a smile too.

He fought it, though, dammit.

XXX

XXX

Thanks for reading? I love you.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

By the time Roxas made it out of the dining hall, he was in a much better mood than he had been entering - even the sickly whites and grays that constituted the building's entire color palette didn't put him off too badly. Of course, he was also that much closer to insanity - but that would honestly just make him more at home in the place by this point, so he didn't fight it very hard.

He escaped his two companions with a hasty excuse - just because he was in a better mood didn't mean he wanted to deal with the two dumbasses any more than he had to - and took off at a jog towards the darkly elegant staircases that led to the upper reaches of the castle. Much to his surprise, the other creatures - nobodies, like him, he remembered - scattered throughout the castle didn't give him a second thought. He supposed that must have been one of the advantages of not being properly human.

He reached the flat top of the castle within minutes, only to find it already occupied, by another member he didn't recognize. The man's slate-grey hair - styled just perfectly to cover half his face - glinted under the light of their artificial moon, and he gave the intruder a cold look, evaluating.

"So," he murmured, mostly to himself, "You're the Keyblade's chosen one."

Roxas twitched a little at that - this guy was going to kill his euphoria.

"I guess," he responded noncommittally. "Nobody's bothered yet to tell me what that means, though. So, who are you and what the fuck are you going on about?"

His question was met with a choked, amused noise from the other, and they both crossed their arms as if this was some sort of competition.

"You are the Keyblade master's Nobody," he responded, eyes dripping toneless condescension. He took a step forward, then another, bangs waving in the breeze, and Roxas felt his good mood abruptly evaporate. That was happening annoyingly often.

Simply put, the idea of just being half of another person was quite repulsive. He wasn't sure whether it was that or Zexion's uppity attitude that was pissing him off more just then - but neither was making him particularly happy.

"Is that so. Why do you want me, then?" he responded, matching Zexion's arrogant manner point for point, though he didn't come by it quite as effortlessly as his elder appeared to. "Why don't you just capture this Sora and be done with it? You should leave me out of your stupid problems."

"You can rest assured that plans are already being made for the use of your Other. However," he continued, "given that your Other has an inordinate amount of power over hearts, and feelings - a power that seems to be linked in some way to the Keyblade - and given that you, a Nobody, also wields the Keyblade, you could advance our research immensely."

Suddenly, another voice interrupted their conversation over the crackling of a portal, familiar in its dauntless cheeriness.

"Aww, Zexy," Demyx said, ignoring Zexion's wince at the interruption - and the nickname - as he walked forward, " play nice with the new kid." He turned to Roxas with a small smile, then, in a half-apology. "What Zexion really means to say is that you're useful to our team. That, and, we generally won't refuse entry to any Nobody who kept their human form." Roxas wasn't quite sure what the tone in the other's voice meant, and before he could decipher it, the conversation had moved along. "It says worlds about your strength of character, you know."

That hit a sore spot.

"Or my Other's strength of character," he muttered, tone angry to hide the edge of quiet bitterness., though Demyx gave him a look that said he'd caught it anyway.

"Don't be like that," the older blonde said with another smile, and the other was surprised by the warm tinge of sadness in the other's expression. "Being a Nobody doesn't mean you're not a person, same as anyone else."

"Demyx," Zexion began - a careful warning, which the other subsequently ignored.

"No, Zexion, he needs to hear this," the blonde cut him off firmly. "I don't care if you believe what I'm saying or not.

That silenced him, at least for the moment - and Roxas marveled at that, how such a seemingly weak individual could garner so much respect, even from his superior. It occurred to him after a moment's thought, however, that Demyx, too, had kept his human form. There are many different kinds of strength.

"Anyway, Rox," he continued, "You're you, not Sora's Other or the Keyblade Bearer. Don't let anyone - even this big idiot - tell you otherwise."

There was a long silence, and Roxas looked from one to the other.

"Alright," he finally agreed, only half believing it. He crossed his arms uncomfortably, then, not realizing just how defensive it made him look - but he didn't want to be there, clearly, or to admit defeat by leaving. The older blonde saved him the trouble by grabbing Zexion by the arm and creating a portal.

"We had better go," he said with a pointed glance that even Roxas couldn't miss. "But, it was nice talking to you."

He created a portal with his left hand, then, and began dragging the other off towards it - though Zexion, petulant as ever, didn't so much agree to leave as was forced through. With an amused and slightly embarrassed wave, the two disappeared, leaving Roxas with a whole hell of a lot to think about.

XXX

"Zexion," Demyx began, exasperated, once they had left and settled down for tea in Zexion's tidy, pastel-colored sitting room, "You're not allowed to traumatize new members until I've had a chance to talk to them. Haven't we been over this?"

Zexion glared expertly at his rose-petal tea in its china cup as he purposefully avoided the gaze of the blonde across from him, partially because he didn't want to respond and partially because he didn't want to watch as Demyx murdered his own cup of tea by drowning it in sugar.

"I'm not traumatizing him," he responded irritably, "I'm informing him. I've told him nothing but the truth so far." Logic, apparently, had no effect on the other, because the younger sighed in apparent annoyance at his words.

"Roxas has the right to decide for himself whether it's truth or not, Zexion." Another cube of sugar disappeared into the syrupy abyss of Demyx's teacup.

Those cups were Royal Patrician china. He should have more respect for tea consumed in such fine tableware.

"If you prefer," he acquiesced gracefully, still distracted by the atrocity being committed not two feet in front of him. "But," he continued, dragging his gaze up to the other's unperturbed smile, "I think that your approach may leave him unprepared for the realities of life as a Nobody."

This was true - no-one but Demyx was going to show him so much understanding. They were going to tear him apart if he wasn't prepared.

"He'll figure it out," Demyx responded confidently, taking his first sip of his syrup. "In any case, he'll get more than enough cynicism from the other members."

That, at least, was true enough - but its implications required some response.

"…If you are waiting for me to acquire your unhealthy sense of optimism, you are going to be sorely disappointed," he informed the other with a raised eyebrow and no small amount of amusement.

Demyx laughed, practically sparking with something that made the Cloaked Schemer distinctly uncomfortable.

"No… I'm not waiting for _that_," he mentioned cheekily, and drained the last of his tea in an instant before waving and turning to go, leaving Zexion wondering just what he _was_ waiting for.

He wasn't entirely sure whether to be disturbed or not.

XXX

It used to be that Marluxia's garden had stood out like a duck in a marching band among the stark winding staircases of the Castle that Never Was, but Axel noted with something approaching despair that he had long since gotten used to flowers taking over the upper reaches. It helped, though, that Vexen was violently allergic to roses - or psychologically allergic, considering what they were and everything, though that made it even better - and he spent all of his spare time yelling at the impassive Number Ten about how flowers did not belong in the headquarters of the Organization.

It didn't have much effect, but was amusing as all hell to watch. The scientist liked to go on and on about how he got no respect around that place, though Marluxia just gave his best amused smile - the fucker always smiled like he knew something you didn't, which tended to be less annoying when it was turned on someone else - and went about pulling weeds.

Sometimes, when he thought nobody was looking, Axel had seen him trying to train his Nobodies to trim rosebushes, which was funny as fuck too. He was keeping that little fact on the back burner to simmer until he found the best way it could be used against him. Or, until the Graceful Assassin did something that was in need of some particularly humiliating retaliation. Either was fine.

But on that particular day, Marluxia was joined in his garden not by a perturbed Vexen or Nobodies secretly trimming the verge, but by Larxene, who was amusing enough for two in her own right. The both of them seemed to be arguing over something - or rather, she was arguing and he was deflecting, in that arrogant, self-possessed way he had.

"Why are we waiting? What are we putting up with him for? We could _finish this_," she hissed, voice climbing octaves with the level of her frustration.

"We're waiting for the right time," Marluxia told her with an almost Zen-like calm, and effortlessly crushed the head of what appeared to be a small grub-worm between his fingers, smiling assuredly the whole time. This brought up the question of how insects made it onto the World that Never Was - but then, it could always have been a Nobody grub-worm. No accounting for Fate's sense of humor, after all.

"_The right time?_ What could be better?! The Superior's distracted, and -"

Marluxia cut her off, eyes flashing in Axel's general direction, as he put his left hand up to pause her - the right was busy wiping Nobody grub-worm guts on his uniform. Classy.

"I believe," he said with a smile almost as false as the one the redhead put on in that instant, "that we have a guest, Larxene."

Interesting. So it was something important. He would have to eavesdrop on them more often.

Those musings were interrupted periodically by thoughts of how perfect those two were for each other - they'd both kill you without a second thought and smile the whole fucking time.

Then again, by that description, he fit in perfectly with them. The perfect threesome - a triumvirate of sadism. Axel laughed to himself at that thought as he stepped forward around a particularly healthy bush.

"If it's not my two favorite people," he lied, knowing he was being blindingly obvious and not caring. "What, lover's spat?"

Larxene's gaze became particularly stormy as Axel stepped in, contrasting - or not - with the evil grin she still wore. The moonlight made her look particularly venomous, which was distinctly appropriate.

"Get the fuck out of here," she snarled, and the redhead feigned intense, soul-rending pain at her words.

"Ouch. You cut me deep," he said, clutching at his chest. "Stabbed right where my heart ought to be." He pause, and her eyes narrowed. "Anyway, why the hate? Haven't done anything to you. Recently," he added with a feline grin.

Almost immediately after he said that, he remembered their last meeting - he had presented her with a copy of Aliénor de Poitiers's fifteenth century book on court manners, hidden under the cover of the Marquis de Sade's early treatise on pain in sex. Likely, she hadn't been particularly happy with that - he couldn't imagine why not.

"Go fuck yourself."

"You know, Miss Poitiers would be real disappointed in you," he drawled, smirking. "She can't help you if you don't use her wisdom," he said with a pointed stare and a laugh. His gaze glanced over Marluxia for a moment - he couldn't help but appreciate the man's body, despite his general arrogant manner and the fact that he was a complete asshole. Didn't stop him from looking - or from tasting, a time or two.

It was easy enough to get a good fuck when he learned - completely by accident, naturally - that power play was what did it for the assassin.

"We were having a _discussion,_" Larxene informed the redhead, interrupting his thoughts with a smile that promised excruciating pain. "And you need to take your bony ass and scramble the fuck out of here before I cut off your genitals and shove them down your throat until you _suffocate_. You would _die_ like you lived, sucking cock." She paused, and even Marluxia had the decency to look mildly impressed. She was getting better . "Is this quite clear to you?"

"Crystal, sheesh," Axel laughed, still not caught off balance even by her threats, putting his hands up in a placatory gesture. "I'm leaving, I'm leaving. Unless you want me to stay and demonstrate my skills," he leered in Marluxia's general direction. He, most unfortunately, didn't appear to be biting, in any sense.

"Axel," the other man responded in warning.

"Alright, I get it. I'm off. You two lovebirds have fun without me," he drawled carelessly as he left, with a falsely cheery wave over his shoulder.

_Well, that was altogether too much fun,_ he thought to himself as he walked through his portal, blacks and purples swirling around him. _I should really piss them off more often_. And with that mental note, he headed off towards Roxas's new room, whistling as he went.

XXX

The general creepiness of the situation, Roxas noted with annoyance, was offset only by the fact that he'd wager Vexen was incapable of any kind of sex. If it had been anyone else showing up in his new bedroom unannounced, he would have given them a swift kick to the dick and left them with that. The only reason he wasn't now was because he wasn't entirely sure whether the scientist actually had a dick or not.

It was really amazing how someone so sexless could give off such pedophile vibes.

"For the last time," Roxas repeated, annoyed. "I'm not going with you anywhere."

Vexen went a little bug-eyed at that, and the younger was sorely tempted to ask him just what species he had been before becoming a Nobody. He settled, instead, for scowling - but that was his general response to life anyway.

"I need to perform tests on you. For the betterment of our research, and furthering our cause," he said in what was surely meant to be an inspiring sort of voice, but fell horribly flat. He was like a political speaker who accidentally blundered onto the stage at the opposition's protest rally - idiotic beyond redemption and always about two steps away from being stoned.

"And I keep telling you no!" Roxas shot back. "You can shove your test tubes up your _own_ ass. I don't trust you and I don't trust your science."

"Science," he informed the younger imperiously, "Is the reason for your existence. Science is the way we came to be how we are and how we'll get back again. It's the explanation for all things, and the highest aspiration anyone can have."

Roxas was fairly sure that the audience was about to get medieval on his ass. Stoning would be the _least_ of his worries.

"Fine, great, but go aspire on your own. I'm not going to be your little playtoy," he shot back, arms crossed and not backing down an inch.

"The Superior orders it," he threw out desperately, one eye bugging out even further than the other, and I was fairly certain that he was lying. Xemnas didn't seem to do much more than stargaze - and possibly do interior decoration.

"Then let him come down here and tell me himself. Get out."

Roxas heard his door open quietly, and spent a moment being thankful that, firstly, he had a door at all - his last was in millions of pieces over the floor - and secondly, that his new visitor had bothered to use it. A quick glance told him that it was Axel, and he was bizarrely grateful for the rescue.

"You heard the kid," Axel noted with a half-smirk as Vexen's eyes did their very best to roll so that they could watch both men at once. He only succeeded in looking more than a little bit confused, though his face did contort extraordinarily. "Leave, or I'll make sure Xaldin knows you were harassing the Keyblade Bearer - in his own bedroom, I might add." Axel's words came with a grin that was all teeth and danger. "He might not be too happy about that, see. His lances are sharp, y'know, and they'd _love_ to taste your gut."

Vexen gave him a look that bordered on pure hatred, but that just seemed to increase Axel's amusement at the whole thing. After a - brief - stare-down, during which the blonde doctor was decidedly on the losing side, he turned around and with a sniff that was meant to be haughty, left - out the door, this time.

"Very well, but you'll regret it when the Superior hears how noncompliant you have been," he said as he swung the door shut, evidently not expecting any sort of reply, after which Roxas gave a long sigh of relief.

"Thanks. He wasn't leaving me alone."

"All in a day's work," the redhead responded with a smirk. "You just gotta learn to boss him around a little. He pretends to be a lot tougher than he is, and for the record, Xemnas and Saïx won't back him up in his little plots when he's being an idiot, so no need to worry about it."

"That's… that's good, I suppose." At least the higher-ups weren't supporting him in his stupidity - that was definitely a plus. He paused for a moment, glance falling on Axel's tattoos, then across the perfectly made bed. "Anyway, what are you doing here? Don't you have more important things to do?"

The redhead's cautiously eager expression made Roxas more than a little bit uncomfortable, but he didn't comment on it. Within a moment, it was hidden behind his casual smirk, leaving the blonde to wonder whether it had been his imagination.

"More important than showing our newest member the ropes? Nah." He paused, slinging a lanky arm over the younger's - admittedly reluctant - shoulders. "Things are kinda slow right about now anyway."

Odd, really, that members of the Organization found themselves without anything to do so very often. It said a lot about them, really.

"What, no plots to take over the universe?"

"Those are for next month," he responded cheerily. "In any case, you and I are going someplace together," he stated rather than asked. "To get to know each other, you know."

"I don't think…" The blonde drifted off, then, implying the end of his sentence. Everybody here seemed way too interested in him - he could only assume that they didn't really get much excitement.

"Come on," the other wheedled, "To get to know each other and shit. It'll be fun. There's not much company around here other than psychopaths and idiots, and some of them are both."

That seemed like an unfairly apt description of the rest of the Organization, and Roxas took a moment to pity the other - and himself, too. After a moment, he finally met Axel's gaze and responded.

"Yeah, alright," he agreed grudgingly, trying not to let the redhead's happy expression make him smile in return. He wouldn't give in that easily. He wouldn't.

XXX

Moonlight shone cheerily onto the roof of the Imperial Palace as Xemnas stepped out confidently onto the wood, tailed as usual by a rather more wary Saïx. They didn't know, yet, precisely what this world might entail - the reports of the Dusk and lower Nobodies were rarely to be trusted - and so the Luna Diviner found it not only inappropriate but possibly dangerous to be completely uninterested in one's surroundings. But then, it was almost always up to him to figure out the practicalities of life while his Superior focused on the larger picture, like where would be the most strategically beneficial world to go for next.

"Is this acceptable?" he asked with a wide gesture towards their surroundings, voice rumbling as his Superior's eyes roved the courtyard, focusing on a small figure making its way across the bridge. Saïx's animal-keen gaze recognized the strong lines of that face, even from their distance - Captain Shang, looking just the same as the reports had indicated; and as expected, a likely candidate for manipulation to their own goals.

"Quite," Xemnas replied back, smooth as ever. "I think we will leave this one to Xaldin's considerable intellect."

"A wise decision," Saïx agreed, though privately he had set his sights on this particular world - but whatever his lord required, he fulfilled, in the service of their greater goal. As soon as Captain Shang was out of sight, they created another portal and stepped back through, onto the next possible conquest. They had a list, of sorts, and though Xemnas would not allow the indignity of checking it off on paper, he did quite the same thing mentally, adding notes as he went along.

In the back of his head, he realized uncomfortably that the job he did was disturbingly alike to a secretary's - but, as always, he pretended he had never thought it as he set foot onto the next world.

--

Halloweentown was more or less as Saïx had expected - a gaunt and dreary place that was comfortable despite how forlorn everything appeared. It took only moments to realize that the only unexpected factor was their own appearance.

"Um, sir," he began, not allowing his face to betray the surprise or incredulity - not to mention the hollow amusement - that Xemnas's new wardrobe brought on. He still wore his black trench coat, but a pair of rather nice scaled wings had sprouted from the back, and his lower half appeared decidedly… serpentine. A jewel in his forehead completed his new look, but judging by the expression of mild disgust and the hand to his new adornments, he was none to pleased. "I…" He drifted off then, not entirely sure of how to bring up a conversation on the topic.

"…You, also, don't appear entirely like your normal self," Xemnas noted with something approaching derision, and Saïx put a hand up - a now _clawed_ hand - to find that he had somehow developed fur within the last minute or so. And fangs, though that wasn't nearly so much trouble.

"…Interesting," he said, but privately he hoped that they would step right back where they had come from and not come back. Whatever that world had to offer couldn't be worth the level of humiliation it brought.

"…Well. I believe we should keep this world in the back of our minds for now, and be thinking of alternative plans."

That was one of the many moments when he was immensely grateful for his leader's genius.

--

In Atlantica, it was Xemnas who spoke up first. Saïx was too busy being rendered speechless by their long - and rather handsomely gemstone-colored - tails.

"There is nothing in any of the hells that would make me put up with this again."

Saïx quite agreed.

--

They thankfully saw the Pride Lands before stepping out of their portal.

Both refused, without a word, to even go in.

In the end, the list of worlds they would use was considerably shorter than they might have imagined. Both were more grateful for that than they could comfortably admit.

XXX

It took only about a total of five or so minutes for Roxas and Axel to appear at the location the latter had decided upon, upon which occasion the younger felt the need to - mentally - congratulate the other on his good taste. They stood together on the edge of the clock tower's rim in Twilight Town, the massive edifice standing out firmly among the other structures of the upper reaches. Below them, everything was painted in orange and red - it was approaching dusk there, though Roxas seemed to remember the town having that coloring at all times of day - and it stretched out for what seemed like miles until it reached the edge, smooth and subtle as the buildings slowly faded to nothing, and beyond that lay the sea in all its glory.

"Nice place," the blonde said, maybe a little bit breathless from the view - and Axel laughed because the understatement was brazenly obvious, and they both knew it.

"I thought so too," he agreed with a grin, then paused thoughtfully. "Wait, wait. We're missing something, don't you agree?"

The other opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by Axel's sudden disappearance, returning moments later with a pair of - probably stolen - ice cream bars in his hands.

"Sea salt ice cream," he said as he handed one of them to the younger, and sat down on the edge of the tower, "I hear it's the best shit out there," he drawled, still trying to sound like a badass and failing miserably. There weren't very many people in the world who could still look terrifying while sucking on an ice pop, and Axel was most unfortunately not one of them.

"Is it really," Roxas murmured as he followed the other's example, gamely taking a lick as he sat down next to the redhead and finding it to be quite acceptable in flavor. He was almost surprised by how comfortable he was in that moment, watching the train go by and eating sweets with someone who was probably one of the most dangerous men alive. If they could, of course, be defined as living.

"Not bad," the blonde finally agreed with a small smile, casually monitoring the progress of a group of friends across the square below them.

"Whoa, whoa - hold everything," Axel said with an overtone of excitement that made the other look up questioningly. "Was that a smile I just saw from you?"

Roxas fixed that mistake within a half-second, schooling his features back down to his practiced scowl.

"No, no, don't be like that," the redhead continued, almost pleading, but with an eager look of happiness that almost made up for Roxas's momentary embarrassment. "I didn't mean anything by it. Seriously, you should do it more often."

"…I think I'm good," came Roxas's carefully neutral response. He had the distinct feeling that the rest of the Organization would - figuratively, he hoped - tear him into tiny, flavorful bite-sized pieces if he was anything less than perfectly callous.

"No no, come on," the redhead wheedled with a small grin, "I bring you up here, buy-"

"- steal," Roxas cut in.

"- _buy_ you ice cream, and you can't even give me one little smile?" he asked, eyes wide in what he was probably unaware was a decidedly puppy like expression. The blonde sighed, shaking his head and taking a lick of his melting ice cream. He was perfectly aware that the other man had seen him smile before, at least once - but he supposed the difference was that, that time, he had been doing it honestly.

"…You don't want me to end up like Demyx, as the organization's punching bag, do you?" he muttered in response, absently playing with one of the many chains on his coat. Psychologists must have had some kind of name for that, really - for joking about what was really bothering you.

"Hey, Demyx is a lot stronger than he lets on," he informed the other, tone slightly defensive if he listened carefully. "He could kick most of their asses if he wanted." Axel paused then, sucking on the end of his ice pop. "But I see your point. Though," he continued, "it's not like I want you to smile in front of them, anyway." The last part of that thought went unsaid.

The most annoying part was that Axel somehow made it sound so appealing.

XXX

Not so very long after the acquisition of Number Thirteen, Roxas, Marluxia chanced upon something of a treat - an imposing white castle, set down improbably in what seemed quite like the middle of nowhere, which had been inhabited for some time by a tiny spineless girl who went by the name of Naminé. She had been born into that world alone, in that castle - which appeared to have extraordinary properties itself - and had, knowing that she lacked something intangible, named herself.

Once he had ascertained these facts, he decided that she appeared to be a Nobody, like he himself was, and it took Marluxia more than a little bit of thinking to understand why the Superior hadn't found her and named her himself as was his custom. His first thought on the matter was that Xemnas was perhaps even more fallible than the assassin had previously thought him.

However, after even a short acquaintance with the girl-child, it became apparent that she didn't have even the most basic abilities attributed to their kind. She had almost no connection to the darkness and even less fighting ability - and as if sensing that, the fates had decided not to gift her with a weapon. Likely, it was the absence of those attributes that made her difficult to detect by whatever Xemnas's normal methods might have been.

Naminé herself was small and pale, a ghostly white to match the sterility of the castle she had come into being with, and delicate the sort of child who would never be able to stand up for herself.

That, of course, made her easy to manipulate. That one quality - in addition to the ability, she later admitted, to manipulate the memories of the Keyblade Bearer and those close to him - made her perfect for Marluxia's plans.

He discovered through her careless use of words that the one thing she desired most in that world was friendship, understanding, and compassion. He pretended to give her the first, though he was quite incapable of the last two, and, promising to return with more companions, he left her locked in her ivory tower. There, she would wait for him to return - he, her knight in polished armor, coming to rescue her from her loneliness in despair.

He didn't plan to return, of course, until she was quite broken.

XXX

XXX

Comment please if you liked? I will love you forever. Totally not even kidding.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Despite all of Axel's best efforts, Roxas didn't seem to be particularly interested in gracing him again with another smile. He spent the ten minutes after the first putting all of his considerable energies towards trying to cajole one out of the blond, but even his best efforts were - disappointingly - met by incredible resistance. Roxas appeared to be almost as stubborn as he himself was.

"Alright, fine," the redhead said once most of his options had been exhausted, voice not betraying a hint of resignation. "It looks like it's time to pull out the big guns."

And with that, he fell straight over the edge, grabbing the hand of an astonished Roxas as he hurtled downwards, pulling the blonde over with him, too. The ground whistled towards them amazingly rapidly, and Roxas took the time to voice his displeasure over the sound of Axel's exhilarated laughter.

"What?! What in _fuck_ do you think you're doing, you crazy bastard?!"

Axel didn't respond, laughter dying down to just chuckles as he used that extra energy to create a small portal, into which they both disappeared for an instant before reappearing quite safely on the ledge of the clock tower.

Roxas turned to the redhead then with a look of astonishment that Axel was sure had been unmatched throughout all of history.

"What," he began slowly, evidently trying to gather his wits about him, "in _fuck_ were you thinking."

Axel grinned at the other, breathless, because it was kind of like every nerve was singed by the excess of adrenaline in his system, and he _loved_ that feeling. There was little enough they could do as Nobodies that would excite them - they had to go to extreme measures.

"Admit it," he drawled when he had his breath back, "you had a fucking blast. That clock tower's better than any joyride."

Roxas's expression didn't change, frozen in that look of horrified disbelief.

"So…" the redhead continued with a devilish grin, "want to go again?"

There was a long silence, during which Axel's thoughts were interrupted momentarily by the idea that he might have really scared the poor guy. Fuck.

His fears were put to rest when, after a moment, the silence was broken by the sound of what must have been Roxas's cracking resolve, as put into evidence by how his scowl fairly melted, revealing the blonde's brilliant grin underneath.

"Alright, you crazy son of a bitch."

Axel realized right then and there that he was fucked, and he couldn't stop grinning.

XXX

There was an inexplicable air of despair around the oven as Demyx removed his first creation from its hallowed depths - it wasn't so much inexplicable because the event wasn't worthy of despair, as that, in theory, cakes were incapable of feeling such a thing. It defied logic as it drooped unhappily in its little silver pan, and the blonde couldn't help but poke at it forlornly. A despondent sigh made itself heard from beside him, and he turned with a sheepish expression to his companion, whose expression was stuck halfway between his usual stone-cold incredulity and amusement.

"Demyx," Zexion began with a small noise that might have been the beginning of a chuckle in another person, "what could you possibly have done to make your cake deflate so badly?" He had to admit, it looked kind of like a popped balloon.

"I, uh…" He wasn't sure, really. "I think it may just be depressed." That wasn't so unlikely, was it? It looked like it was, anyway.

"I think you may just be a hopeless case," came Zexion's dry response. "You may wish to go to another for instruction - your atrocity is beyond my skill to remedy."

Their cooking lessons had started not so very long before, when a bored Demyx had happened upon his superior going through an impressive collection of dog-eared cookbooks in the basement library. In return for the blonde's silence on the matter, Zexion had agreed to teach him to cook, or at least to try to teach him. Despite the fact that the blonde had never had any intention of sharing said information with the public - not that the other man knew that - it was definitely an acceptable arrangement to both parties. It gave Zexion an opportunity to look down his nose at a younger member - or so he told himself, at least - and it gave Demyx a chance not only to learn something useful, but to have an excuse to spend some time watching the Cloaked Schemer.

He was quite the fascinating person - finicky and perfectionist to a fault, cold and lethal at his worst, but with a hidden tendency towards domesticity that kept the other Nobody constantly amused.

"Zexy, come on," the musician pleaded, puppy-eyed, clearly ignoring the other's wince at the nickname. "Give me one more chance."

"…I fail to see how your skills could be improved by my assistance."

"That's because you're being a pessimist," Demyx informed the other

Zexion raised an eyebrow at that - a patent-worthy look of derision was just one of his many talents.

"…When compared to your incorrigible optimism, almost anyone would appear to be so."

"I learned pasta sauce well enough," he pointed out, crossing his arms and shifting his weight to one side. The other man was definitely avoiding looking at him now.

"Tomato sauce requires little to no actual skill," the scientist muttered in a way that Demyx knew meant he was giving in.

"Maybe not," the blonde agreed happily. "So I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"…If you must." Really, he was cute when he got flustered.

XXX

With as crazy as they were, Roxas knew that the Organization had to have some kind of initiation rites. So, at least he was kind of expecting it when Xigbar found him shortly after his return to the castle. He was not, however, particularly ready for the manner in which he was acquired.

Previously, he had found ceilings to be relatively harmless, and nothing that needed examination before entry into a room - but then, he had never before been introduced to Xigbar's peculiar talent.

It was a good thing that the man's intentions were friendly - that time, at least - because that particular mistake was only going to be made once. He never could walk into a room again without examining the ceilings for hidden foes. He got good at hiding it, though.

But that first time, it took about two seconds for Xigbar to snatch the blonde straight up from the floor - being upside down was quite the uncomfortable sensation, he noted, and wondered how the older man could stand it as often as he did - and to pull him though a portal, to be deposited unceremoniously in front of the largest, most powerful fucking Heartless Roxas had ever had the misfortune to lay eyes upon. Its eyes glowed with the force of its fury - maybe that was nothing special, but it was still mildly off-putting to the still recovering blonde - and it had teeth that were about doubly as long as the kid was tall, not to mention the aura of hatred that said it was going to rip out the eyes of all comers.

"Good luck with this one, kid," Xigbar drawled in his gruff manner, giving Roxas a pat on the back that might have injured anyone smaller. "We'll come back for you in an hour. If you're still alive, you're a member." Roxas would almost have sworn he could see the blood of small babies in the teeth of the Freeshooter's grin.

"So all I gotta do is kill that thing?" he asked, pretending that his sudden abduction and subsequent abandonment didn't bother him any at all.

"No, all you gotta do is _survive_." Roxas swallowed nervously at that - if that was difficult enough for his initiation rite, it must really have said something about how fucking hard that thing must have been to kill.

Xigbar left with those cheery words of advice, stepping into the tendrils of dark and watching the scene as he went.

His dangerous grin was the last thing to disappear - it looked like it hung in the air for seconds after the rest of him was gone, but that might just have been Roxas's slightly hysterical imagination.

That thought was actually kind of fucking creepy in and of itself.

He snapped his focus back to the Heartless in front of him when said creature made a noise that sounded halfway in between a roar of anger and the shriek of a rusty door, bringing his hand in front of him and finding a keyblade flash into it, not unexpectedly. With this reminder of his Nobody powers, it occurred to him that he could just create a portal and go back to the castle - then, he remembered that nobody had as of yet bothered to teach him how.

This was probably why, the bastards.

It was definitely a mark of something - Roxas wasn't quite sure what - that the thought held so little venom. He filed that thought in the back of his head to be examined later - or repressed into his unconscious, more likely - before shifting his weight downwards into a guarding stance.

He'd just have to fight this one out. He was alright with that, though. It kind of felt like he needed to do some serious ass-kicking.

XXX

The expression on Larxene's face was nothing short of murderously delighted when Marluxia finally decided to inform her of his little find - the tiny pale girl with lonely eyes, whose powers and nature made her _perfect_ but whose name he couldn't properly recall, nor did he particularly care to.

"When was this?" she asked, malevolence glinting from her bottle-green eyes in perfect shards.

"When I found the girl? About a day ago. She should be ready in a month," came Marluxia's reply, his placid tone not betraying the fate of the girl in question. Ready, of course, meant broken and therefore malleable.

"So what's your plan exactly," she drawled as she dropped down onto the long white couch in Marluxia's quarters, slinging her arm casually over the back and legs left mannishly in whichever position they landed.

Though he was not a particularly open person, Larxene - and only her - was always told about his plans, ever since she joined them and introduced them to her boiling spitfire attitude, and introduced him to her penchant for sadism. Their interests and opinions lay so parallel it was mildly off-putting, at first, but it didn't take them too long before both realized that they fulfilled a crucial deficiency in the other. Larxene, for a start, had no talent for planning or strategy - though she had a much appreciated ability to fuck with a person's mind - and Marluxia had no desire or inclination to get his own hands dirty, much preferring to leave the actual fighting to lackeys.

"The castle is the perfect trap for the Keyblade Bearer, as I'm sure you understand," he began, not following suit, instead choosing to remain standing, "and with a few well-placed suggestions, we can lure a small group of the Organization there to convert at our leisure. And if they choose not to convert…"

"It's understood that I get the pleasure of killing them, isn't it?" she drawled, smirking, her voice fairly dripping with intensity and excitement at the prospect as she interrupted him. "I get to watch them die, little by little - watch the life drip out of them - until we have what we want."

"Naturally," the assassin responded, his perfect baritone warm as he watched her. "But I - and I alone - have the leadership of our… operation."

"Only if you can keep a hold of it," she shot back, and the lines of her neck tensed though Marluxia knew she didn't mean a word of it - because she would be willing to fight for it, whether she wanted it or no, just for the thrill of the power play.

"I welcome you to try," he responded roughly as he closed the distance between them, lips meeting and teeth clashing in a struggle of passion and dominance, neither caring about the prize over which they fought, but neither willing to submit.

It was, after all, the principle of the thing.

XXX

Far too many sets of eyes were on Roxas as Xigbar brought him back through the portal straight into one of their common areas, where roughly half of the Organization's members had apparently been waiting for his return - or not, as the case may have been. The opinions upon seeing his return were mixed, at best - Larxene seemed downright disappointed, Luxord amused, and Demyx radiated a tense kind of excitement that almost negated the opinions of the other two, whether he wanted to admit that fact or not. But the face that really stood out was Axel's - the expression of flushed pride that flashed across his face for an instant just in time for the blonde to see it before it was replaced by the man's usual grinning indifference meant the world to him.

"So you made it," said Larxene, as usual unable to keep her mouth shut when she could sound derisive and malevolent. "Well, at least now I can finish you off myself."

"Shut up, bitch," shot back Xigbar with a drawled amusement that might have seemed out of place with his callous words if he'd been anyone else. "Nobody takes your threats seriously anymore. You should learn to just shove it up your ass," he continued with a gravelly laugh, because he could get away with it. He could probably fuck her over sixteen ways in a minute in a fight, and they both knew it.

Not many other people were willing to challenge Larxene, it seemed - and if Axel's former discussion was right, that wasn't because she was necessarily stronger than anyone there. It was more because the amount of effort it would take to fight the woman - verbally or physically - was more energy than any of them were willing to spend.

The way she flinched at the senior member's words indicated that the redheads thoughts on the matter were probably true - she wasn't used to being stood up against.

"I'm alive," he muttered then, eyes roving, as if they couldn't see that for themselves, then realized how stupid he sounded and continued without remembering to take a breath. "So that means I'm officially a member now, or what?"

Zexion, looking mildly put-upon in his corner where Demyx had likely deposited him after dragging him there, had the grace to interrupt before someone could make up another initiation rite for the sole purpose of torture.

"Yes," he practically grunted, and Roxas sighed with relief. "You're a member. You were before, also, however." Oh, so that meant the whole initiation thing had pretty much been unnecessary - great. Seriously, no fucking way.

"But some of these big idiots wouldn't have taken you seriously if you hadn't shown what you were made of," Demyx informed him with his usual cheer, not in particular caring who heard him. "So it was all worth it just for a little bit of respect, wasn't it?"

"Not," Axel interrupted, locking eyes with the other for the first time that evening, "that the guys are going to stop giving you a hard time. You're still the new kid until we pick up somebody else."

Roxas shrugged, taking it all in stride for possibly the first time since he'd arrived. It hadn't been too bad so far, after all.

XXX

Even Nobodies could be disturbingly difficult to understand at times, Zexion mused detachedly as he drifted in and out of listening to Demyx's monologue. The rhythm of the words was kind of nice, admittedly, and the topic was interesting enough - one particular science fiction novel that the blonde had just finished - though his tendency to go on about a topic that the other could not respond to, not having read the book, was mildly annoying.

The fact that the cheery blonde continued to attempt conversation with the other man on a regular - even daily - basis, said something about both his determination and his intelligence. Something possibly unflattering.

But Zexion's attempt at a rationalization was only, he suspected, a cover for the fact that no matter how much time he spent with the other man, he still didn't understand the blonde's motivations. There was no logical reason for him to seek out company of any kind - especially not Zexion's own less than enthusiastic companionship - and yet, day after day, Demyx would find him and dispense his cheer upon the other.

"And there was this really neat concept, where every person in the world had a machine that locked directly in on their location, and it would kill them if they poked a nose out of line," he informed the other with a vague emphasizing gesture from his position on the couch opposite the smaller Nobody, sprawled across it in a way that may have been comfortable for the blonde but certainly didn't appear that way.

"Demyx," Zexion began, interrupting the other's momentum suddenly, in a bout of inspiration - or courage. "Why do you continue to seek me out when it is clear that I have no valuable input to give you on these matters?"

Said blonde sobered down, almost instantly, meeting the other's gaze with a smile in his blue eyes and no hesitation whatsoever.

"You don't have to have valuable input to be able to listen," he pointed out, shifting his weight slightly so that it was easier to face his companion. "Sometimes I don't need input. I'm just, I dunno, talking."

"To fill the silence," Zexion suggested, crossing his own arms against his chest and watching the other from underneath his perfect bangs.

"No," Demyx corrected, "To converse with a friend about things that interest me - or preferably, the both of us. You, however," he continued with a good-natured laugh, "are a notoriously difficult conversation partner. So sometimes I just talk at you. You need contact with people too, you know, whether you think so or not." There was a pause. "And you've stopped telling me to leave you alone, so that's a plus."

That statement struck Zexion like a strobe light to the face, leaving him rather dazed and adjusting to the sudden assault on his neural processors - because he hadn't, in fact, noticed the change himself until it slapped him in the face.

He liked to think that he was keeping himself fairly composed and unreadable as his mind convulsed, in the throes of a paradigm shift, though the growing look of amusement on Demyx's face told him that he was failing. But that was growing, it seemed, increasingly alright by him.

XXX

A few days after his unofficial initiation, Roxas was saddled with his first assignment - and, unsurprisingly, he wasn't teamed with Axel, because the Superior highly disapproved of fraternization between members. The blonde thought that was a bit hypocritical, himself, considering that even after just a little bit in the Organization it was pretty evident that Saïx was a little bit more than just Xemnas's second in command. When he went to his lord's observation deck to receive orders or give reports, he always tended to stay a little bit long for them to just be discussing the state of affairs.

There were, of course, other things which they have been discussing the states of - but Roxas tried not to think about it too hard. He suspected it might break something important in whatever fragments were left of his soul if he did.

Hypocritical or not, though, it didn't particularly matter, because Axel was paired with Demyx for their assignment, and Roxas with Marluxia. This was probably to keep the latter away from Larxene, Roxas suspected, who had the privilege of staying back at the castle and fuming while most of the other members went out fighting for the betterment of their Organization. The small blonde was acceptably ambivalent about his match-up, because Marluxia seemed like a fairly alright guy, even if he might have had a little bit of an authority problem disguised under the silkiness of his manner.

When they finally dismounted from their ivory thrones after the announcement was made, they both teleported instantly to their designated meeting-space as they had been instructed, the younger grateful that Axel had finally bothered to teach him how.

"So, have you been informed where, exactly, we're heading?" Roxas asked as mildly as he was capable once they arrived, the hissing noises of their portals twisting through their speech. Marluxia didn't step out of his portal as Roxas had, instead giving the other an unreadable look - apparently he had some kind idea all of a sudden, because he closed his portal without ever stepping out, leaving the blonde alone and pissed off, because he was abandoned in the castle and had no idea where in fuck his partner was going.

He opened a portal with a huff, fuming over his partner's apparent abandonment, and set off into the blackness, hoping that he might miraculously pick the right world and that he might miraculously find Marluxia on it, to give him a taste of the business end of his keyblades. Not many people could honestly say that they had tasted destiny, but Marluxia was soon going to be one of those people. He was going to get a fucking _mouthful _of destiny, and _suck it_.

Of course, being so bent on giving the man a piece of his mind, it never occurred to him to return to the council room and just ask where they were supposed to go.

With a muttered curse and a hope that he suddenly developed the ability to kill people from a distance, Roxas opened up another portal and walked straight out into the first world he came to.

He would regret that immensely before the day was out.

XXX

"So," Demyx began, finally broaching the topic that had been on his mind for days to a sullen Axel as they walked through the gloom of the Underworld, "I notice you've been spending a lot of time with Roxas," he continued nonchalantly.

"What's it to you?" Axel shot back, dismissive as always - but the blonde had long since decided that it was at least mostly a defensive mechanism. There had been a time when the redhead's surly, disparaging side had bothered him immensely - but that had been back in the day when the redhead had been the only person in the Organization who was ever willing to hold conversation with their ninth and newest member. Now it was just another part of Axel, to be navigated and avoided as the case required.

"Nothing, I guess. You were always just so adamant that nobodies didn't have feelings of any kind, it makes me kind of happy-" and a little bit vindicated, though he didn't say that "-to see you growing fond of someone. It's not all bad, is it?"

"I'm not _fond_," the redhead informed the other, mind trying to get around the word that he'd probably never even _thought _before, much less said. "He's just interesting. That's all."

Demyx didn't believe that for a minute. There was nobody else in the whole world who could make Axel - cold, lethal Axel, the Organization's hidden trump card - look like a puppy trailing eagerly behind its oblivious master. He opted - wisely - not to phrase his thoughts in quite that way.

"Axel, life will be a lot more pleasant for you when you stop lying to yourself. You _like_ this guy. That's not supposed to be possible, is it?" he posed smugly, watching Axel deal with a small Heartless as it appeared in front of them. Demyx himself was pretty useless for stuff like that - his partner could have his weapon out and the creature's gut slit in the time it would take the blonde to summon his first construct.

"It's not," he responded with much less confidence than he normally might have, his weapons disappearing into nothing as he straightened back up from his fighting stance. After a moment, he turned to face Demyx, straight on. There was a deliberating silence.

"Look, get off my fuckin' back," he finally muttered, jade eyes glancing downwards for an instant before looking back up. "I don't need you to stick your fucking nose in my business."

Demyx flinched at that - whether he was used to it or not, he was still a pretty sensitive guy, and the look Axel was giving him was actually kind of scary.

"Alright, alright," he defended, putting his hands up in a gesture of defeat. "You win. You're not fond of him or after his ass -"

"I never said _that,_" Axel interjected, feline grin returning in an instant.

"- so I'll stop bothering you… Wait, what?" he interrupted himself, surprised. "But I thought…" He stopped in the middle of his sentence, trying to work that out for himself. He suspected that he might have had an easier time processing if Axel wasn't grinning at him with that look of what almost qualified as sadistic delight at his partner's shock.

"I can want to fuck a guy without being 'fond' of him or whatever," he drawled, apparently amused, as Demyx spluttered. "You and I've done it more than once," he reminded the other as he continued walking down the cavern. The blonde started automatically into a trot to keep up, mind still trying to right itself.

"I can't believe you would actually admit that," he finally got out. "I mean, I _can_, because it's you, but still." He knew he wasn't being particularly coherent, and didn't care too much either.

Axel shrugged.

"Haven't got a heart, you know, or have you forgotten?" he added with just enough edge to take it over the line into cruelty, his pitiless eyes never wavering in their intensity.

Maybe he had, he thought, watching Axel's back as he swaggered up the pathway to where the doorway that was their destination. He had forgotten, and he hoped that he would go on forgetting over and over again, no matter how many times he was proven wrong, until everyone else forgot, too.

XXX

The town that Roxas found himself in gave off the distinct impression of peeling at the edges - it was a port village painted in yellow lamplight and the reek of human refuse, but bustling with the kind of vibrancy that the blonde had never experienced in his short life. It was alive in all the ways that the Castle wasn't, with people enjoying their humanity in every way.

In ways he'd never seen before, actually. In ways he hadn't even known were possible.

Really, he hoped to whatever god was in charge of fate and the torture of creatures that were only half alive - because there had to be one - that it would take pity on him and let Marluxia be there, somewhere, and easy to retrieve.

In the general hustle and bustle of the square - the energetic chatter interrupted occasionally by the bark of laughter from a larger building to the left - there were a few women who stood out not because of any defining physical characteristic, but because they weren't doing anything in particular. They stood off to the side looking prettily bored - which Roxas could only assume was the intention - in dresses that must have squished their midsections to about a third of their actual size.

The blonde definitely though that he probably wouldn't understand women at all - then again, at this point, his only frame of reference was Larxene. He doubted anybody of either gender got her, except for maybe Marluxia, and he probably pretended he did so he could get in bed with her.

Pushing thoughts of the Organization's resident sadist aside, he walked over to the women, seeing as they were probably the only ones in the square who weren't either drunk out of what few wits they may have had, passed out, or engaging in public sex acts that the blonde was sure he wasn't really keen on interrupting.

"Excuse me," he said to get their attention, not really knowing where the sudden politeness had come from.

"Well hello there, dearie," one of them responded before he had a chance to finish his sentence, too-red lips curving up into what was probably supposed to be a flirtatious smile but ended up seeming more predatory. "Can I… help you?" she asked, looking up through her lashes, and Roxas couldn't help but take a step back. He wasn't sure just what she wanted to do with him, but he was pretty certain he wouldn't like it either way.

"Yeah. Uh, can you tell me where I am?" he asked, glad that his hood was still up so that she couldn't see the look on his face, whatever it might have been.

"This 'ere's Tortuga," she informed him incredulously, voice reaching pitches that normal voices shouldn't have been able to touch as she shared a look with her friend, who was thinner than a glass rod and looked almost as fragile. Roxas found himself suddenly glad that there weren't more women in the Organization, if this was what they were like. "'ow'd you get 'ere if you don't know where you be?"

"I'm not entirely sure," he responded, halfway truthfully. "Anyway, I'm looking for someone," he continued hastily, not wanting the conversation to go on for any longer than it absolutely had to. " He had pink hair and wore a lot of black. Have you seen anyone like that?"

The two shared another look, and suddenly the woman's painted smile dropped into an expression of coached indifference.

"Oh, you're lookin' fer _'im_, are you," came her slightly superior question as she pointed towards a less dilapidated building on the far edge of the square. "'E's over thataway," she informed the blonde, turning her back then and putting her arm around her friend before Roxas even had a chance to give a word of thanks, not that he was particularly complaining. He noticed as they left that he felt a bit gratified - vindicated, even - by the fact that he was not the only one who was on a fast track to hating Marluxia. The guy was just an asshole to everyone, apparently.

Writing off their sudden departure as a side effect of that fact, the blonde set off at a trot in the direction she'd showed him, confronting the warm orange light of the door within just a minute or so, after deftly avoiding a few drunk people who were asleep quite happily on the stained cobblestones. Determinedly not thinking about what, precisely, they were stained with, Roxas took a step over the threshold, only to be greeted by one of the stranger sights he had ever been privy to. The room was filled with men - lots of men, and only men - who all seemed intent on giving the newcomer in his pretty black robe a thorough look-over.

"Can we help you?" asked a man who slunk over from the corner, and the young blonde sighed in relief because this man, at least, seemed to have a fair grasp of the English language.

"Yeah, actually. I'm looking for a man with pink hair. He'd be wearing a suit similar to this one. I really need to speak with him," he said all in one breath, because he was immensely reassured by the imminent prospect of reencountering his missing partner. Giving another wary glance to the other men in the room, it occurred to him that he might even spare Marluxia the beating that he deserved if he could just leave this fucking place. He heard a gunshot and some screaming from the square just then, and winced more than he cared to admit.

"Eh, I see," the man responded, giving an understanding nod. "He's here. Upstairs, actually. Would you like to go see him?"

"_So_ much," Roxas breathed, grateful. "Thanks a ton. You don't even understand how much I appreciate this." Apparently not everyone in this place was batshit insane.

The man grinned kindly, just wide enough to show off a rotting tooth on the top, then gave the blonde a pat on the shoulder.

"'Tis no problem, lad," he reassured the smaller. "Anything I can do to help."

Brushing off the next words of thanks, the man summoned someone who seemed to be a lackey in that place - a lackey wearing lots of black eyeliner in twirling patterns, but Roxas didn't ask - to bring the blonde up the stairs and to a pockmarked wooden door behind which Marluxia apparently was hiding. He slammed the door open to make a point to the man inside, ignoring the small woodchips that fell off of the top in a spray of dust.

"Marluxia, you son of a bitch," he spat, before his eyes adjusted to the lights in the room and he realized that the pink-haired man inside was not, in fact, his missing partner. He was a pretty - even beautiful - strawberry blonde, with much better teeth than his friend downstairs and a look of invitation that even Roxas couldn't miss.

"Oh," he began then, flushed with what definitely wasn't embarrassment at his only halfway accidental intrusion. "I'm so sorry, I… Oh," he drifted off again, eyes widening, as he realized that the man on the bed - no, walking on the floor now - was quite naked and didn't seem to have any problems with that. Within another instant, his hand had been grabbed and he was being led, still shell-shocked, towards the plush bed.

"Calm down, lad," the man said with an attempt at sweetness that, in combination with his nakedness, made Roxas's stomach turn a little. "It'll be alrigh' if you're jus' relaxed."

That statement made the gravity of the situation obvious enough that Roxas finally summoned up the presence of mind to tear his hand out of the other's grip.

"I think there's been some mistake," he spluttered frantically, looking for a quick exit.

"No mistake. You asked fer me."

"Actually," he said as he scooted sideways, finding the door - predictably - to have a broken handle on the inside, "I didn't ask for you. I was looking for someone else." He was suddenly distracted in his search by the sensation of the man's lips meeting with his own, and the action put him so much in shock that he couldn't move at all, much less attempt an escape.

Thankfully, they were interrupted by the creak of the hinges as the door opened and a familiar - yes, sweet god, familiar - voice rumbled out in Marluxia's smooth baritone.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt anything," came Marluxia's amused drawl after a moment's pause, and Roxas pulled away from the other man's face in horror. "I'll leave you to that then," he continued with an undertone of mockery that Roxas was astonished he'd ever missed, pulling the door back closed.

"I'm coming with you asshole," he snarled as he stuck his hand out to catch the wood before it pulled shut.

"Oh? But you were having so much fun." He didn't seem too bothered as Roxas yanked the door open and stepped through purposefully.

"You _left_ me to these people," the blonde hissed, jerking a hand out to the side in a vague directional gesture that might or might not have been pointing the right way.

Marluxia raised a perfect eyebrow at that, and gave a laugh.

"I heard from the whores in the square that you might have been in need of some assistance, so I came to help you. This is how you thank me?"

Roxas was left quite slack-jawed at that - the measure of the man's delusions was quite frankly astounding.

"But _you _left me to them in the first place!"

"That's not what Luxord saw, and he's prepared to defend that point in front of the Superior," Marluxia responded with an expression that might have looked serious except for the evil smirk in his eyes.

When Xemnas called him up on it later, Roxas held to his story that he was completely not responsible for his actions, because Marluxia _totally_ had it coming to him. Nobody believed him but Axel - but the fact remained that he had gotten to paste Marluxia's smug face - repeatedly - and the memory made his punishment entirely worth it.

XXX

XXX

Sorry for the delay - extra long chapter to make up for it.

Comment if you liked?


End file.
